


Then 'Twere Well It Were Done Quickly

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Gen, Gratuitous Rube Goldberg Machine, Hey do you think I can fit five dependent clauses into this sentence?, Hurt Minimal Comfort, Minor Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts, You're hazard to society. And a coward. Try eight., vomiting mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26788918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: "Both the class of ‘66 and ‘68 had been made to kill real people on the Run. It was terrifying how much Vetinari drank that night, but he claimed he’d never learned how to get drunk and was operating on the vain hope that emptying his wallet would empty his brain" -All The Patrician's Horses"If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere wellIt were done quickly. If the assassinationCould trammel up the consequence, and catchWith his surcease success; that but this blowMight be the be-all and the end-all here,But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,We’d jump the life to come. But in these casesWe still have judgment here, that we but teachBloody instructions, which, being taught, returnTo plague th' inventor: this even-handed justiceCommends the ingredients of our poisoned chaliceTo our own lips." -Macbeth
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	Then 'Twere Well It Were Done Quickly

He did not feel like he was caught in the shadow of a towering wave. If he were in the shadow of a towering wave he would be climbing the tallest structure in the area as fast as he could, finding something stable to cling to and… Okay, maybe that was exactly how he felt. But it was how he was going to feel about what he was going to do that had dredged up this cresting wall of terror.

Every Assassin in Ankh-Morpork went into the Run _believing_ they were going to kill someone that night. The class of ’68 went in knowing it.

There was a difference between being tested against a client’s own defenses, on a contract you had agreed to, knowing all the details of who you were killing and, more often then not, why someone wanted them dead, and killing an unknown soul, selected from contracts taken out by the government, for a piece of paper certifying that you could use a capital letter when identifying your profession. It was being made into an instrument of the state at knifepoint, and here he was, submitting to it, for his own gain, at the expense of a stranger’s life.

Lord Vetinari, draped in a velvet cloak dark as a cloudy night somewhere with no light pollution, arms wrapped around a spire on the roof of the Temple of Blind Io for no reason other than physical comfort, had different options then most Assassins. Their options were succeed and live or fail and die. Vetinari’s options were: a) escape the dozen Assassins with contracts on him during the test, leave the city never to return, and support the overthrow of Snapcase from afar in a kind of flag-waving advice-offering way b) fail intentionally, leaving the pursuit of a better future to others, and break his aunt’s heart c) carry through with what was expected of him, knowing it would haunt him in a way no other kill ever would.

Liam Downey had said “The Run ought to be easy for Dog Botherer, since he’s already this kind of weird avenging angel of death.”

‘Weird avenging angel of death’ was a very high compliment to be paid behind your back, but Downey had been a licensed Assassin for two years now, he must realize the Run wasn’t just harder because it was a first time. Assassination wasn’t a matter of ‘it gets easier as you go along.’

Vetinari had technically made that night’s decision when he was thirteen and had taken the black. The question of whether he could kill someone he knew nothing about, someone helpless, probably drugged asleep so there would be no unaccounted for variables in the test, had been posed all those years ago, and answering the verbal part of the test ought to have been the point of no return.

But Havelock Vetinari was the best—not by an extraordinary margin, but he was neck-and-neck with whoever else was the best—at swordsmanship, at climbing, at hand-to-hand with knives, at strategy and setting traps, even at running, although he hated running because it hurt his knees and ankles, and though he read too much into the fact that poison classes were really about sarcasm and he couldn’t be bothered to make up for dismal grades in concealment, he knew he had ways out at any point and the Run would test one thing and one thing only.

The evening sky was covered in dark blue clouds that looked like one huge cloud had been hit with a hammer and shattered. The temperature was low and dropping. He couldn’t stay on this roof forever. His mark was in a house on Baker Street. The Guild had set up a mannequin that would move back and forth in front of the window, which, if shot at, would launch a poisoned dart following the exact trajectory of the projectile that had hit it.

Havelock had pelted it with a remotely operated trebuchet a few times to confirm this hypothesis, and then a few more times to let the Guild know how unimpressed he was with this.

He had to enter from the ground floor and he had decided to do so through the window, where most of the traps were. With a large ball of twine, a clementine, a ladle, two rolls of tape, a flog ball, and a fork, he could get all the traps to set each other off, unlatch and open the window and then neatly draw back the curtain so he wouldn’t get lint on his cloak.

He heard one of the Assassins trailing him pull out a sketchbook to make a drawing of the machine.

He would not use the stairs to get to the upper floor. The sensitivity of the pressure plates under the carpet had, doubtless, been adjusted to respond to an Assassin who, against his better judgment, prided himself on the ability to walk across the crust of snow without falling through. Instead he climbed up the banister like it was a pipe or fallen tree.

There was one bedroom at the top of the stairs. As they say: the brave man does it with a sword, the kindest use a knife.

Havelock opened the window when he was done and Dr Follett climbed through from the roof outside.

“Well done, your Lordship.”

The title still felt new and a bit strange. Vetinari bowed his head in acknowledgment.

“I am wondering if there was any particular inspiration for what you did with the traps on the window?”

There clearly was, and Follett watched the boy open and close his mouth and then sign that he couldn’t talk.

“I’ll ask you about it later, shall I?” Follett handed Lord Vetinari the pink slip of paper that certified that he had completed his course of study. There would be a formal graduation in a few weeks that Vetinari would not attend. He would vanish from the city once again, untraceable as a ghost.

But tonight…

People watch with well-founded concern when a young person orders a lot of strong drink alone, even if they are wearing Assassins’ black, and it is late spring, and a lot could go wrong for someone looking funny at an Assassin the night of the Run.

“How old are you, fifteen?”

“I’m eighteen.”

“And you want it neat?”

“If you please.”

“Ya sure you don’t want something more posh?”

“I would prefer a more expensive whisky, but I am attempting to become inebriated and I do not have inexhaustible funds.”

“You can’t be more than nine stone, how much—“

The Assassin slid a heat-colored flick knife out of his sleeve, unfolded the rainbow blade to clean bits of twine off of it, and smiled sweetly. “I do prefer it when people when people do not make personal remarks.”

In response, the barman slid the Assassin’s glass across the bar and tried to pretend that he did not exist.

Vetinari ended up buying a bottle of gin because it was not yet midnight, and his mind had not quietened its screaming that he was unforgivable, that he had intentionally put a tarnish on his soul that could never be scrubbed away, that ‘the ends justify the means’ just meant that you weren’t smart enough to come up with better means, and showing him the unconscious face of the man he had deprived of life.

This meant it was on the floor of the third-storey bathroom of the Assassins Guild that he was found, freezing cold, with vomit in his hair.

Vetinari did not, at that point, really have friends in the Guild, as his general approach to making friends as a teenager was allowing other people to come up to him and declare themselves his friends and not knowing how to begin approaching the concept from the other direction. He did, however, have people who wouldn’t decide that it wasn’t their problem if he died.

“Oh is that lot doing the Run tonight? I forgot about that.” Downey said as though he had seen a notice on a billboard and not someone sprawled across the tiles.

“Liam!” Ludorum shouted in chastisement and the boy on the floor stirred slightly at the sound. “Oh good, I think he’s asleep and not unconscious.”

Havelock made noise that sounded halfway between the words “freezing” and “freddo.”

“That looks like lunch in his hair, I don’t think he ate dinner.”

“Liam Downey, I am actually going to slap you.”

“Should we get him to his room?

“Havelock,” Ludo said, shaking him slightly. “Can you wake up?”

Vetinari scrunched up his face, squeezing his closed eyes further shut and said, “Please don’t tell my aunt.”

“He seems fine,” Downey said.

“You have a very messed up idea of ‘fine.’”

“Yes. I do. Which of us is going to sit up with him?”

The next morning Downey was certain he ended up with a worse headache than Vetinari from listening to someone who had taken one (1) chemistry class attempting to cobble together “scientific explanations” for hangover cures.

Learning who he had killed: a viscount who had supported Winder to the end, helped soften the horror of an anonymous inhumation about as much as wrapping a tea towel around a club before hitting someone with it. But sometimes moving forward was a higher priority than forgiving oneself.


End file.
